Obituary of Charles Fawcett, who led an " FEB 11 2008

In Paris Fawcett also took part in the rescue of a group of British prisoners-of-war who had been placed under French guard in a hospital ward by the Germans. By impersonating a German ambulance crew, Fawcett and a comrade marched in at 4am and ordered the French nurses to usher the PoWs out into the yard. "Gentlemen," he announced as he drove them away, "consider yourself liberated."

"You're a Yank," said a British voice.

"Never," came Fawcett's lilting southern burr, "confuse a Virginian with a Yankee."

He also romanced Hedy Lamarr, starred in movies with Sophia Loren, and got married a few times:

In three months at the end of the war, Fawcett married six Jewish women who had been trapped in concentration camps, a procedure that entitled them to leave France with an automatic American visa.